By Janet Levy, AM THINKER, August 19, 2024
For an ideology born in a library to an loathsome scholar, Marxism has never shied from world conquest. Its earliest proponents, Marx and Engels included, were committed to inciting revolution in all countries. And Lenin, a man of praxis and internationalism, believed that besides revolution and warfare, the way to defeat capitalism was through propaganda.
To that end, the Left in America has engaged in cultural warfare – a “whole of society” revolution to destroy Western civilization. Critical Theory, wokeism, DEI, and ideas about gender fluidity – these are all distortions of reality deployed to change our system of values, beliefs, attitudes, and preferences. Leftists believe that by doing so, they will cause existing social structures to crumble. They think anarchic socialism will then become viable, emerging from the chaos of a society without order and values.
The following ten are among the techniques of influence the Left uses regularly. The list is by no means exhaustive, nor without a degree of overlap. Some methods are as old as time, but some are unique to Marxists. Awareness of them could help thwart the Left’s malign intentions.
Manipulation of language: In his essay ‘Politics and the English Language,’ as well as in the novel 1984, George Orwell described how communist dictatorships have used language for controlling people by manipulating perception.
Examples abound in America today. Abortion supporters are described as “pro-choice,” sanitizing the extinguishing of a life. Illegal border-crossers are called “undocumented migrants,” absolving them of criminal intent. New sets of pronouns, laughable concepts such as “sex assigned at birth,” and dangerous euphemisms like “gender affirming care” disrupt reality while pretending to preserve human dignity.
Convenient labelling is also used against those who question the Left. “Hate speech,” “white supremacist,” “right wing extremist,” “Islamophobe,” and similar terms are freely used to condemn skeptics and cancel them.
Rewriting history: “The first battlefield is to rewrite history. Take away the heritage of a people and they are easily persuaded,” Marx wrote. It’s a chillingly true observation, and explains why Leftists lay so much stress on presenting history so that it molds public opinion in their favor.
The Left wants Americans to believe that this great country and its heritage are defined by two great evils – racism and slavery. That is why they proclaim that America was founded when the first slaves arrived in 1619, not when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. The Biden administration backs this blasphemy, aimed at destroying a traditionally sanguine, forward-looking culture by inducing guilt and self-loathing.
Gaslighting: This psychological maneuver uses cognitive dissonance to sow doubt and guilt, and makes people question their memories, perceptions, judgment, and reality. When President Biden was repeatedly described a few months earlier as “sharp as a tack,” and “on top of his game,” those who suspected his fitness for office were bound to feel they had been cruel and judgmental. His dementia became obvious, however, during the presidential debate in June.
Gaslighting was also used to hide the truth about Hunter Biden and the evidence of corruption that turned up on his laptop. The whole affair was described as “Russian disinformation.”
DARVO (or, Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender): This is a technique typical of cultural Marxists. When parents objected to drag queen story hours in schools, Leftists responded by saying drag queen hour only “engages” children in meaningful activity (denial). They described protesters as bigots perpetrating LGBTQ hatred (attack). They also claimed they felt threatened by the transphobia, which could turn violent (reversing victim and offender). Similarly, parents who opposed pornography in school libraries were accused of censorship and LGBTQ-phobia.
Identity politics: This involves claiming power or entitlement based on race, ethnicity, sex, or sexual identification, and is usually accompanied by loud assertions of victimhood. Merit, effort, innovation, grit, individualism – virtues that transform lives and cultures – are negated as undesirable bourgeoisie, “white,” or capitalist traits. Intersectionality, a posited cousin of identity, has invaded the evaluation process for public and private institutions, job candidates, academic performance, and so on. Based on the notion that a person may be marginalized or victimized by any aspect of his or her identity or experience, intersectionality demands compensation through relaxed standards.
Identity politics is also used to coerce support. In the last election, black supporters of Trump were told they “ain’t black” if they aren’t voting for Biden.
Disinformation and obfuscation: This may take the form of outright institutional lying, a norm in the erstwhile U.S.S.R. It has become a prominent feature of American institutions. After the assassination attempt on Trump, missteps in planning, communication, staffing, and reconnaissance were covered up with lies. Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle claimed that the building used by the shooter wasn’t secured because it had a dangerous “sloped roof,” which the shooter could nevertheless scale and repeatedly fire from. Witnesses saw the shooter and asked law enforcers to act, but agents later claimed they weren’t able to eliminate the threat in time.
Oppressor vs. Oppressed: This technique is used to seek revenge by inducing guilt for an alleged privileged status. It’s commonly used against whites and Western capitalist countries, but not limited to them, as the propaganda against Israel shows. The Jewish nation is maligned as a genocidal “oppressor” indiscriminately killing innocents in Gaza – never mind that the Islamic terrorist group Hamas massacred more than 1,200 Israeli civilians and took more than 200 people hostage.
Entryism: This is a classic Leninist strategy of gaining control over organizations, especially centrist or non-hardline leftist political groups, by gradually infiltrating them and lying low until the crucial takeover. Such a takeover, of the Labor Party in Britain, is well-described in Frederick Forsyth’s The Fourth Protocol, a meticulously researched thriller praised for verisimilitude. An example closer to home is the Leftist takeover of humanities departments at American universities, once famous for their classical liberal education.
Entryism is also deployed by pressuring or shaming organizations and businesses for not employing people of certain groups – say blacks, or Hispanics, or transgenders. The aim is to eventually transform these organizations to foster Leftist policies.
Degrowth: By pushing goals such as “sustainability,” “ESG,” net-zero emissions, and so on under the guise of “saving the planet,” Marxists aim to contract Western economies. Meanwhile, China continues to pollute and grow. Eventually, standards of living will deteriorate in the West, populations will decline, and the potential for communism to take root will accelerate.
Playing the victim: To garner support, the Left has always created victim groups it claims to fight for. It demeans individuals by making them believe that they are not responsible for their actions or lack of action. For example, low math scores of black students are blamed on systemic racism, not on lack of parental involvement, bad teaching, or lack of motivation.
In summing up, it might be worth pointing out that if cultural Marxist ideology seems muddled with contradictions, it is by design – to sow confusion and division, making it easier to gain influence and control. An example of such a contradiction is the putative ideal of feminism: advancing equality for women in all spheres of society. But if Marxists care about women, why would they put them in harm’s way by forcing them to share bathrooms with biological men posing (or “identifying”) as women? Why would they revile women who object to the intrusion as “transphobic”?
The truth is that the endgame is not about the issue – women’s rights, saving the planet, protecting transgenders/people of color, or whatever. It’s about fundamentally transforming American society and preparing the soil for communism. It’s all about the revolution.
Image: Darkcloud2222, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed
It is not only shameful and immoral to employ any of these techniques, but it should also be illegal. ANY party, organization, media outlet, or individual, who engages in such activities, should be prosecuted under the RICO act. Similarly, there must be laws on the books prohibiting acts of subversion. Why haven’t these laws been enforced? If we cannot deal with these evil forces, civilly and constitutionally, then we must find another way before disaster comes upon us.
Felix, you are misreporting what I wrote. I did not write that Karl Marx took over the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, I wrote that Marxists (contemporary 21st century Marxists) have taken them over.
And I see no refutation of the blood libel against Jews on this site or out of Israel
Which I mentioned
“But sad too. Today I am struggling in Europe against blood libels. Jewish settlers you see are accused with “torching” villages … A barrage of lies coming out of Jew hatred so heavy it is impossible to keep up with.
Where’s the information fight back? “
I want to affirm that this is an atrocious political position being taken up here in this article by Janet Levy and American Thinker and this will go down in the history of Israpundit in the most negative manner.
Peloni
The claim that Methodist and Quaker are controlled by Karl Marx is completely insane. There is a man or woman now running this site who clearly is off his rocker.
This is now becoming comical.
But sad too. Today I am struggling in Europe against blood libels. Jewish settlers you see are accused with “torching” villages … A barrage of lies coming out of Jew hatred so heavy it is impossible to keep up with.
Where’s the information fight back?
Sorry. Misused not Missed
Prove that Marx had anything to do with the following
Playing the victim: To garner support, the Left has always created victim groups it claims to fight for. It demeans individuals by making them believe that they are not responsible for their actions or lack of action. For example, low math scores of black students are blamed on systemic racism, not on lack of parental involvement, bad teaching, or lack of motivation.
In summing up, it might be worth pointing out that if cultural Marxist ideology seems muddled with contradictions, it is by design – to sow confusion and division, making it easier to gain influence and control. An example of such a contradiction is the putative ideal of feminism: advancing equality for women in all spheres of society. But if Marxists care about women, why would they put them in harm’s way by forcing them to share bathrooms with biological men posing (or “identifying”) as women? Why would they revile women who object to the intrusion as “transphobic”?
The truth is that the endgame is not about the issue – women’s rights, saving the planet, protecting transgenders/people of color, or whatever. It’s about fundamentally transforming American society and preparing the soil for communism. It’s all about the revolution.
Image: Darkcloud2222, via Wikimedia ”
Marx and Marxism have not the remotest connection with transgenderism
And when he was living Marx warned against people who missed his name
But Levy tries to slander and make cheap points
A very insightful column. Janet’s breakdown of Marxist techniques for gaining power into separate categories is overly repetitious. Some of these categories are really the same as others in her list. But the over-all jist of her coumn is accuate. Marxists seek to acquire power by dividing up people into “oppressors” and “oppressed, even though most people don’t fit into either of these catagories. They seek to provoke conflict, or outright war, between the groups that they assign to these artificial categories, The encourage people in the “oppressed “category to be filled with rage and self-pitywhile those in the “oppressor” category to be filled with guilt and shame. They claim that there are no positive or praiseworthy aspects of the society in which they live, instead painting a dark picture of it as opprerssive and unjust.Janet is right that they work to “infiltrate” established institutions, such as academia and the churches. (Janet doesn’t mention their church takeovers). Their comolete takeover of some churches, such as the Presbyterians and Methodists, which are now totally controlled by Marxists, and the Quakers, whose main organization has been contrulled by Marxist so outright communists going all the way back to the 1940s. Also, their very substantial “caucuses” in the Catholic and Episcopal churches.
As for Judaism in the United States, they are more or less in complete control of the Reconstructionist movement, and have heavily infiltrated Reform. Several smaller Jewish “movements” such as the “Progressive ” movement and “Humanistic Judaism” movement are dominated by Marxists as well. The Jewish “Humanists” are openly atheist, although they include some prayers in their liturgy) Really makes sense.
I suppose I should have resisted calling Levy a bitch….but she starts by calling Karl Marx loathsome
And israpundit must be behind that because it prints Levy without any equivocation
And then printing stuff which has nothing to do with Marx
Then the ACTUAL massive role of Marx in defending rights of Jews in Prussia
And explanations of the persecution of the Jews at the hands of Muslims in Jerusalem by Marx
Surely you are familiar with this?
Yet you lend your weight to Levy here describing this man, long dead, as loathsome
Then there is fight of Lenin against Antisemitism
And Lenin was surpassed in this regard by Trotsky
Why do you do it?